Dr. Joshua John‑Ram Schacter introduces the risks inherent to surgery even within a generally safe U.S. system, emphasizes ongoing efforts to improve surgical outcomes, and proposes helping patients improve overall health (potentially avoiding surgery) by treating surgery as the end of a care spectrum rather than the first option.
Surgery is not without its risk. We do have a very safe surgical system here in the United States, from a perspective of we don't lose a lot of patients, and we're always in the orthopedic center of Excellence. We're always striving to improve our surgical outcomes. That is number one goal. And I will say in defense of hospital systems, that my hospital system is 100% on board with anything to make surgery safer or better. But even in the best situation, we have patients who have painful and debilitating complications. And there's several reasons why that happens. Overall health is decreased. And so that got me thinking. Well, if we're doing too many surgeries on patients who really aren't healthy enough, then maybe we can start to offer to help patients get healthier and maybe even avoid doing a surgery altogether. With surgery as sort of at the end of a spectrum of care.
She Traveled from Colorado for a Different Approach to Knee Pain | Lois’ Story
